Casey At The Bat

Title: Casey At The Bat A Ballad of The Republic Sung In The Year 1888

Author: Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Illustrator: Christopher Bing

Publisher: Handprint Books http://www.handprintbooks.com/

Publication Date: First Edition: 1888 New Edition: 2000

Genre: Poetry and Sports

Audience: Gr. 3-5

Awards: Caldecott Honor

Overview: Casey At the Bat is a baseball poem originally written for the San Francisco Examiner but it still remains a sports classic. It takes place in 1888 at a baseball game. The home team from Mudville is losing by 2 runs. It is their last at bat. The loyal fans are holding their breaths and hoping that the "Mighty Casey" gets the chance to hit because he is their last chance. There are two outs and two batters before Casey gets to swing. Unbelievably, the two batters gets hit. The crowd goes wild. There are runners on second and third and the beloved Casey is up. With overconfidence, Casey struts up to the plate and allows the first two pitches to go by. Strikes! Here comes the next pitch...and you'll have to read the book to find out if Casey saves the game.

Activity: I thought of a couple different ideas for this book. For third graders, I would read majority of the book to them and stop right as Casey is getting up to bat. I'd let them write their ending to the story in poem form, as a prediction. We would read a few out loud and then I would finish the end of the story. Another activity could be to act it out. When I was in third grade we reenacted the poem on the baseball field behind our school. It was a lot of fun and it made us listen to the book. For fifth graders, I was thinking of incorporating more writing. Since Casey At The Bat was originally a newspaper article, we could do a class newspaper. They'll learn how to write in article form and then we could compile it into one big newspaper.

Reviewer's Name: Gina DeBartolome